NEWBURGH – He has been an outspoken critic of city government and a community activist for years. Now Omari Shakur is a councilman-at-large in the City of Newburgh.
He took the oath of office on Friday and will officially take his seat on the council on January 1, 2020.
Shakur had previously run for mayor against the late Judy Kennedy and last year facilitated a massive voter registration drive in the city, getting over 1,000 city residents registered.
Shakur said he is looking forward to getting to work and has issues he wants to tackle immediately.
“Housing is a big issue right now. Jobs- livable wage jobs is a big issue right now and also the aftermath of the budget,” said Shakur. “We’re going to deal with those things right now going in. I’m going to look at what the City Council already has proposed and then we’re going to look at some things that we’re proposing: dealing with housing, dealing with equity agenda programs. We have a lot of things we’re working on the first 100 days. We have some goals we want to meet; so, hopefully we’ll meet those goals and take it from there,” he said.
In addition to his first 100 days’ goals, Shakur said he believes he will be able to bring a new dynamic to the city council with more community participation and hopefully larger attendance at council meetings.
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